Mrs. B: Calgary Expo, Cosplay and Alex+Ada

It’s Expo time! The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo is on now through Sunday, so things have been a bit busier around our house this week. Busy for myself and my daughter, Poppy, because we made the decision to cosplay at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo this year …and Poppy only decided what she wanted to be last week (which will be Zelda this year). I decided what I wanted to do months ago, but only got around to getting the outfit together a week ago so I have no one to blame but myself for that.

As a super shy person, cosplay is a funny thing. I am torn between really wanting to do cosplay, and not really wanting people to look at me, so I tend to pick more obscure characters to do. For the past few years my daughter has been a deciding factor in us doing cosplay since she absolutely loves, loves dressing up. This year I was inspired by one of my current favourite comic titles, “Alex and Ada” by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn; and I have decided to go as Ada, the Tanaka X5 android. I like it because it doesn’t look like me and yet you almost can’t tell I am dressed up unless I show the Tanaka tattoo on my wrist. Like I say, cosplay for shy people.

As for the comic, I found Alex and Ada fascinating to read because it was so different from what I am normally drawn to, style-wise. I tend to gravitate to very painterly comic art, and at first I wasn’t sure what to make of the book’s spare style and flat rendering. But the more I got into the story, the more I liked the artwork and felt it completely suited the sci-fi storyline. It reminded me a lot of the movie Gattaca, which I then went back and re-watched. I still think that movie is great, and I think it’s because of that same economy of detail and sparseness in style. It lends it a timeless quality, and really hones in on the emotional side of the story–no distractions.

I also started to see all the very subtle and beautiful details in the artwork. I sat and looked at the cover of issue 5 for a long time, taking in the different outlining colours (burgundy on Ada, grey on Alex’s clothes), and the gradient shift in lighting from pink on the left to orange on the right, and the almost imperceptible gradient shift in colour for the title letters going the opposite way from orange on the left to pink on the right. A beautiful cover. The art very much mirrors the story, which could also be described as subtle and beautiful. I was sad to hear that issue 15 is set to be the final issue, but I am very glad that I picked up the title, and that it gave me my 2015 Expo cosplay idea 🙂